We study a fully funded, collective defined contribution (DC) pension system with multiple overlapping generations. We investigate whether the welfare of participants can be improved by intergenerational risk sharing (IRS) implemented with a realistic investment strategy (e.g., no borrowing) and without an outside entity (e.g., shareholders) that helps finance the pension fund. To implement IRS, the pension system uses an automatic adjustment rule for the indexation of individual accounts, which adapts to the notional funding ratio of the pension system. The pension system has two parameters that determine the investment strategy and the strength of the adjustment rule, which are optimized by expected utility maximization using Bayesian optimization. The volatility of the retirement benefits and that of the funding ratio are analyzed, and it is shown that the trade-off between them can be controlled by the optimal adjustment parameter to attain IRS. Compared with the optimal individual DC benchmark using the life cycle strategy, the studied pension system with IRS is shown to improve the welfare of risk-averse participants, when the financial market is volatile.

Defined contribution (DC) pension plans have been gaining ground in the last 10–20 years as the preferred system for many countries and other agencies, both private and public. The central question for a DC plan is how to invest in order to reach the participant's retirement goals. Given the financial illiteracy of the general population, it is common to offer a default policy for members who do not actively make investment choices. Using data from the Chilean system, we discuss an investment model with fixed contribution rates and compare the results with the existing default policy under multiple objectives. Our results indicate that the Chilean default policy has good overall performance, but specific closed-loop policies have a higher probability of achieving desired retirement goals and can reduce the expected shortfall at retirement.

The transition from defined benefit to defined contribution (DC) pension schemes has increased the interest in target annuitization funds that aim to fund a minimum level of retirement income. Prior literature has studied the optimal investment strategies for DC funds that provide minimum guarantees, but far less attention has been given to portfolio insurance strategies for DC pension funds focusing on retirement income targets. We evaluate the performance of option-based and constant proportion portfolio insurance strategies for a DC fund that targets a minimum level of inflation-protected annuity income at retirement. We show how the portfolio allocation to an equity fund varies depending on the member’s age upon joining the fund, displaying a downward trend through time for members joining the fund before ages in the mid-30s. We demonstrate how both portfolio insurance strategies provide strong protection against downside equity risk in financing a minimum level of retirement income. The option-based strategy generally leads to higher accumulated savings at retirement, whereas the constant proportion strategy provides better downside risk protection robust to equity market jumps/volatilities.

Automatic enrollment has substantially increased employee participation in defined contribution plans. Yet little is known about how retirement plan design features influence retirement wealth accumulation in a setting of labor market turnover. We find that employees separating from jobs with automatic enrollment plans are significantly more likely to take a cash distribution (and potentially pay a tax penalty) than those separating from jobs with voluntary enrollment plans, offsetting some of the benefits from automatic enrollment. Yet given the sizeable improvements in plan participation from automatic enrollment, wealth accumulation for automatically enrolled participants, net of cash-outs and penalties, remain higher than it would have been under voluntary enrollment.

This paper summarizes recent developments in Dutch occupational pensions of both the defined contribution and defined benefit (DB) types. A reform of DB schemes is discussed that introduces financial assets as individual entitlements. At the same time, the reformed schemes derive (dis)saving, financial risk management and insurance decisions from the explicit objective of adequate and stable lifelong retirement income. The proposed system also involves an insurance contract pooling longevity risks and possibly collective buffers that share systematic risks with future pension savers. The paper identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the Dutch contract design and draws lessons for other countries.

Empirically, in many developed countries, homeownership rises with age. Both housing wealth and financial wealth affect retirement adequacy. Focusing replacement rates based on pension incomes alone may detract from the full retirement adequacy picture, as homeowners do not pay rent and hence need less cash. This paper adopts a wider perspective of retirement adequacy and includes net imputed rents in the calculation of replacement rates to gauge retirement adequacy. Including net imputed rents in replacement rates calculation is particularly important for Singapore, given the prevalence of house ownership, made possible by the nexus between retirement and housing policies. Workers can use part of the monthly contributions to Singapore's central provident fund to finance housing. While this would tradeoff retirement savings, it boosts spendable income for home-owning retirees. It is found that incorporating net imputed rent in the computation of replacement rates boosts the replacement rates by 12 percentage points for a male median worker and by 15 percentage points for female median workers.

Over the last 20 years, the extent of defined benefit provision has declined substantially in the United Kingdom. Whilst most of the focus has been on deficits relating to past benefit accrual, the increasing cost of future benefit accrual is also important. There are two reasons for this. First, the change in the cost of defined benefit accrual represents the difference in the earnings for employees with membership of a defined benefit scheme and those with membership of a defined contribution scheme. Second, the current cost of defined benefit accrual gives an indication of the cost of an adequate pension. As such, it can be compared with levels of contribution to defined contribution schemes to determine whether these are adequate. I therefore look at how the cost of pensions has changed relative to the cost of non-pensions earnings. I also look at the main components of the change in pensions cost – those relating to benefits payable, discount rates and longevity – to analyse their relative importance. I find that the cost of employing a member of defined benefit pension scheme has consistently outpaced the cost of employing someone in a defined contribution arrangement. I also find that the current cost of accrual is significantly higher than the average level of payments to defined contribution schemes.

The move from defined benefit to defined contribution (DC) has transferred the longevity and investment risks from the plan sponsor to the individual plan member. Without the actuarial cross-subsidies implied by pooling these risks, the danger of outliving one’s savings is significant. Much attention has been focussed on pre-retirement investment design but less on post-retirement. In most countries, the post-retirement systems in place are insufficient to solve this challenge for small asset sizes or small proportions of individuals’ retirement accounts. However, a number of DC markets are mature, such as Australia and Chile, and the principles of a solution that works for all must be identified. This paper researches a number of post-retirement systems around the world and identifies ten key factors that contribute to post-retirement solution design. These factors can result in an inconsistency between countries regarding the most appropriate post-retirement solution. Additionally, a disconnect is apparent between what retirees need and want in post-retirement. Successful post-retirement solutions will inevitably blend investment and insurance components in a balanced manner. With lengthening life expectancies, research supports strategies that blend a growth and income account-based approach for the first 15–20 years after retirement with longevity protection in later life.

To improve the design of the pay-out phase of DC plans, this paper proposes a new approach to structure pension products: the Personal Pension with Risk sharing (PPR). By unbundling and valuing the investment, (dis)saving, insurance and risk-sharing functions of pensions, PPRs allow risk management and (dis)saving to be customized to the specific features of heterogeneous individuals. Unlike variable annuities, PPRs allow investment risks to be combined with longevity insurance without giving rise to high year-on-year volatility in consumption streams or opaque and rigid valuation and smoothing rules. The synthesis of a PPR structure provides new opportunities for product innovation and for the comparison of retirement products.

We analyze optimal consumption and pension insurance during the life time of a consumer using the life cycle model, when the consumer has recursive utility. The relationship between substitution of consumption and risk aversion is highlighted, and clarified by the introduction of this type of preferences. We illustrate how recursive utility can be used to explain the empirical consumption puzzle for aggregates. This indicates a plausible choice for the parameters of the utility function, relevant for the consumer in the life cycle model. Optimal life insurance is considered, as well as the portfolio choice problem related to optimal exposures in risky securities. A major finding is that it is optimal for the typical insurance buyer to smooth adverse shocks to the financial market, unlike what is implied by the conventional model. This has implications for what type of contracts the life and pension insurance industry should offer.

This paper studies the relationship between financial literacy and retirement planning in Chile, a country with mandatory defined contribution pension plans at the core of its retirement policy. Using a novel dataset, we find that very few Chileans are planning for their retirement and that the levels of financial literacy are remarkably low with only 47% of the population understand compound interest and only 18% understand the concept of inflation. We also find a positive and significant relationship between financial literacy and retirement planning suggesting that investments in financial education could have a substantial impact on the way people think about retirement and therefore on their ability to reach retirement with adequate resources.

We argue that we should see a negative relationship between the share of risky assets in the default fund of a defined contribution (DC) pension plan and the average plan member age if trustees design the default fund in line with predictions from the life-cycle portfolio choice theory. Adoption of the default fund should be low in DC plans with high member age dispersion if default funds are indeed designed for the average plan member and members become aware of this. From analyzing a panel dataset of Australian DC pension plans, we obtain results that are consistent with both hypotheses.

State and local pension plans are increasingly moving from the traditional defined benefit (DB) model to non-DB models that generally allow for participant-directed investment. This shift has important implications for the management of the more than US$3 trillion in assets held to finance public employee retirement benefits. To investigate these implications, we introduce new data from a nationwide survey of public DB and non-DB plans and a unique data set on thousands of individual investors in the state of Florida's defined contribution (DC) plan. Using these sources, we explore how participant involvement in the public sector affects the distribution of asset class allocations, management fees, investment outcomes, and portfolio rebalancing at both the individual and aggregate levels. We found that there is little difference between the DB and non-DB plans in terms of asset mix, returns, and fees, except that DB plan have greater access and allocations to alternative investments. We also found that while the average individual DC plan participant allocated their asset similarly to the DB plan, black females and older white males, on average, invested on opposite tails of the risk spectrum.

This work has three objectives: first, to provide a comprehensive review of administrative fees; second, to construct a comparative data set for 53 countries; and third, to perform an empirical analysis that highlights the main determinants of pension fees from a world-wide perspective. The paper provides an econometric analysis by using panel data techniques. It finds the greater statistical significance of market size, result that is reinforced by mandatory pension schemes. Other factors, such as structural country conditions, market's vertical integration and the presence of an occupational pension scheme, seem to be less relevant.

This paper explores the introduction of collective risk-reallocation elements into defined-contribution pension contracts. We consider status-contingent, age-contingent, and asset-contingent arrangements to reallocate risk among participants. Eliminating asset market risk for the retired raises their welfare, whereas it lowers the welfare of the workers, despite the fact that they benefit later from the same arrangement. Overall welfare falls. The welfare effects are largest when personal and pension portfolios are optimally chosen. Allowing for intragenerational heterogeneity, the highest-skilled retirees benefit most, whereas the highest-skilled workers lose most. Our main results are qualitatively robust to a number of model variations and extensions.

We report analysis of voluntary switching from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) plans in an environment best characterised as benign. Using a large Australian fund database we identify socio-demographic correlates and the macroeconomic circumstances associated with DB to DC switching. The age of participants is an important correlate of switching behaviour, suggesting a degree of risk tolerance previously not recognised in the literature. It is also noted, however, that this type of switching behaviour may involve secondary behaviour such that uncertainties of DC investment performance are managed by reference to an asset allocation formula that maps to the previous DB investment strategy.